Beauty Review Rating Criteria

Posted July 7, 2016 by Ashley Zink

Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Rating: Wowza, do I love these people or what?! Committed to cosmetic safety, the EWG team analyzes the ingredients of every one of our beauty products. For each one, they tally the hazard of individual ingredients, then compare the product to the rest of the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database to determine its hazard score. All of the beauty products we test and recommend fall into the low to moderate hazard categories. Yipee! That means you can still be a makeup maven without sacrificing your health.

Animal Testing: All of the products we review are produced by companies that have pledged not to test on animals through organizations like PETA and Leaping Bunny. Others provide independent company pledges to show their cruelty-free status. If a company is not certified through PETA or Leaping Bunny but they still have an internal policy on no animal testing, it’s your decision whether or not to embrace these makeup brands. In our currently available beauty reviews, rms, bodisafe (formerly GlamNatural) and Beautycounter fall under this category. You can learn more about Leaping Bunny’s certification standards here and PETA’s here (scroll down to FAQ).

Animal Product Ingredients: We do our best to choose beauty products that are free of animal-derived ingredients. This can sometimes be difficult to determine, since many ingredient names are confusing and no one on the team is a Crazy Sexy chemist. So, we comb through each ingredient list and call to question some companies about their unique formulations. In each review, we’ve noted the beauty products that contain bee products. Whether you choose to buy them is a personal choice, which is why I want you to have the details needed to make an informed decision.

Cruelty-Free Versus Vegan: And remember, cruelty-free and vegan do not always mean the same thing when it comes to cosmetics. A company can pledge to not test on animals and even be certified by PETA and/or Leaping Bunny as cruelty-free, but may still use animal-derived ingredients in its products. See, confusing! Unless you’re a Science Sally, you may have trouble deciphering between plant-based and animal-based ingredients, so here’s a handy-dandy list PETA put together to make your cosmetic search a little easier. And remember, you can always call the company to clarify any questions and concerns you have about what’s in the product you picked.